Tenure Anxiety

As my tenure & promotion application drags into its 7th month, my anxiety level is rising. I don't have any particular valid reason for feeling this way -- it's not like any of my colleagues in the same tenure & promotion cohort have heard anything either -- but I do. I've started wanting to throw little (large?) temper tantrums because it simply doesn't feel fair that the university can leave me (us) in such limbo for over half a year.

I was discussing it with one of my (equally anxious tenure applicant) colleagues this week and she raised a valid point: she wondered whether there was any other job on the planet in which your employer can hire you, not give you a single performance review for 5 years and then feel it is justified to review the past 5 years of your performance in one fell swoop. Then, if they don't like what you've done/are doing, let you go with no (reasonable -- you'd have to hire a lawyer and fight it out for years) chance for improvement or rebuttal.

Just *Poof!* , thanks for your time, now please clear out your office and don't come back. And, really, let's face it: no other university will likely touch you with a ten foot pole if you've been denied tenure (at least in medicine; I can't speak for other disciplines). Good times. No wonder anxiety levels are high.

So I'm spending a lot of time taking deep breaths, trying not to throw visible temper tantrums and just generally reassuring myself that no news is good news and that my application is a strong one that, to the best of my knowledge, has not hit any speed bumps in its long journey.

Then I read this. Awesome. I hadn't even thought of that.